The RexRegina Hamilton Case [$44.95 - TiPb Store link] is hands down one of the finest crafted leather pouches I have used to date. While this particular type of case may only appeal to a certain crowd, I can not recommend it highly enough for those of you who are fans of the pouch case. For the full run-down read on after the break!

This RexRegina Hamilton case is a perfect fit for any business man or woman out there that is looking for a classy yet simple case to keep an iPhone protected. It is made from the finest leather available directly from the Tuscany region in Italy. And once you get the case in your hands you can instantly feel it’s high build quality.

With it’s slim profile you can slide the case into a computer bag, briefcase, purse or pocket with ease. Within the first couple days of use the fit may feel a bit too snug for your liking but give it time, the leather will break in but not so much that the phone would easily fall out of the case. You can rest easy knowing that the fit is secure. Another nice feature is one that not many pouch cases actually have – access to the volume control and the ring/silent switch. The side height is designed to allow easy access to the controls, which is a welcome addition to a pouch case.

Like I mentioned early, these types of cases are not for everybody, but if you are someone who prefers high quality pouch cases it may be worth your while to give this case a try.

Learn more and purchase @TiPb’s iPhone Store >>>

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

RexRegina Hamilton Case for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G

The S stands for speed, and the 3G stands for the third generation, HSPA (High Speed Packet Access – wikipedia link) data network, which is also supposed to bring broadband-like speed to your iPhone’s internet connection. When you’re on the 3G network, you can tell by the little 3G symbol at the top of left of your iPhone’s menu, right beside the signal strength bars and the name of your carrier (AT&T, Rogers, O2, Orange, etc.).

There are several other symbols your iPhone might show instead of 3G, however, depending on the type of connection and reception available in your area and sometimes specific spot.

If you don’t have a 3G connection, whether your area doesn’t support it or you’re just indoors or behind an obstruction that’s preventing it, your iPhone might default down to a 2G connection, known as EDGE, (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution – Wikipedia link). That’s the little E symbol, and If we keep the same analogy, this is older, slower technology — dial-up to 3G’s broadband.

If you’re getting an E and you really think you should be getting 3G, try going to the Settings Icon and toggling Airplane Mode on and off. That should force your iPhone to re-connect with the network and give you the fastest speed available. Sometimes even moving to a different, less obstructed spot can make a big difference.

If even EDGE isn’t available, the iPhone will still try to connect via GPRS (General Packet Radio System – Wikipedia link) an even older, slower 2G protocol shown with an O symbol (for outside chance?). To stretch our analogy as thin as this signal, GRPS would be the ancient 24K modems.

Of course, if you have Wi-Fi enabled and connected, you’ll get the Wi-Fi fan symbol instead.

If you’ve turned all the radios off and gone into “Airplane Mode”, you’ll get the little airplane symbol and absolutely no connection to the internet whatsoever. (Turn Airplane Mode off — and your connections back on — via the Settings icon on your home screen.)

And yes, you can turn on Airplane Mode and still re-enable Wi-Fi if you really want to.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone 101: iPhone Connection Speed Symbols from O to E to 3G (or an Airplane)

In a move designed to make even notorious Wi-Fi stripper Verizon seem liberal by comparison, China Mobile’s outstanding demand that Apple strip the iPhone of both Wi-Fi and 3G if they want to sell to the worlds largest carrier just got an uncomfortable shot of “maybe” via Apple Insider:

while there’s no concrete information to suggest Apple would agree to make such concessions, references to “ChinaBrick” discovered in betas of iPhone Software 3.0 leave room for debate.

Also at issue, China Mobile wants control of the regional App Store. Without 3G or Wi-Fi, would there even be a point?

And we’d joked about AT&T…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone 3.0 “ChinaBrick” Reference Connected to China Mobile Demands for Disabling Wi-Fi and 3G?

Welcome to From the Forums, a regular post here at TiPb that gives you, our readers, the chance to get involved in our ever growing community. To get yourself started please register, it will only take a moment of your time, we promise. Now that’s out of the way, lets dive right into some of the better threads for today.

Our first thread today comes to us from iLoveiPhones and she brought up a good topic regarding data prices for our iPhones. Will the data prices rise, stay the same, or can we possibly see different pricing tiers? Personally we feel we may just start to see different pricing tiers. Granted high data prices don’t seem to be slowing people from buying the iPhone but lower data prices could open the flood gates.

Next thread was started a while back by ExBBUser and he wanted to know, what are you top 5 App Store apps? This one has been highlighted here before but with the App Store hitting the one billion mark, why not toss this thread back into the mix?

Sticking with the theme of iPhone apps, cjvitek started a nice little thread titled iPhone CrApp List. It’s simply a thread that you can go to and relieve your frustration on a app you may have purchased just to find out it is pretty pathetic… we have all had this happen at some point or another so share your experience.

Our last thread today is one that I started a while back but with the rumors of AT&T beefing up their 3G network in preparation for the next iPhone, how fast or slow is your 3G data speed? Test your speed out and feel free to post a screen shot in your reply. (Just make sure you have 10 posts to be sure you can post any images.)

See you on the forums!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

From the Forums: iPhone Data Prices, Top 5 Apps, CrApp List, 3G Data Speed

We’d mentioned previously that AT&T is upgrading the ole rabbit-eared 3G network for Apple’s upcoming next generation iPhone, and WMExperts covered it yesterday, but it’s worth surfacing the details:

AT&T Mobility VP Scott McElroy says software updates will double the downstream speed to 7.2 megabits per second and are already being tested in two markets [...] But AT&T’s looking past that and toward HSPA+, which will increase speeds to 21 Mb/s. And looking even further into the future, tests with the 4G LTE standard should begin sometime next year.

A helpful commenter, Will, gave us the skinny on those phat pipes after the last podcast:

• Plain ‘ol 3G refers to the original WCDMA specs which gives a max throughput of 384 kbps.
• 3.5G in the UMTS world commonly refers to HSDPA which is already up and running.
• “3.75G” – 3GPP Revision 6 – HSDPA (max of 14.4Mbps) and HSUPA (max of 5.76Mbps), known together as HSPA
• “3.9G” – 3GPP Revision 7 – HSDPA (max of 42Mbps) and HSUPA (max of 11Mbps), known as HSPA+

Thanks Will. Well, by any other name, we hope these upgrades not only give iPhone users blazing fast speeds, but better reliability. Doesn’t matter how fast you go if you can’t connect, right?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

More Details on AT&T Upgrading Network in Advance of Next Gen iPhone

Lately the forums have been on fire and leading up to another iPhone release it is bound to be one wild ride. So now is a perfect time to get yourself registered and join in on the conversation.

Just yesterday Rene started a interesting thread, Are You Running Your iPhone 3G on EDGE and Why? While I understand why some of you may choose to EDGE over 3G, for me, I like to live dangerously, 3G or go home. How about you? Stop by and let Rene know what you think.

This next thread was started by Crackberry veteran forum moderator, Duvi. He simply wants to know, do you think the next iPhone will come with a flash for the camera? Feel free to speculate all you’d like on that one. I’m going with no, it will not have a flash.

Next up we have a thread that yours truly started, it’s simply about the latest iPhone rumors. Is there an EDGE only iPhone in the works? How about a CDMA version for China? And before all of you Verizon hopefuls start to get exited – no, a CDMA version from China would not work on the Verizon network. They use different frequencies. Thoughts?

Poor RIM, I can’t remember such a hyped phone that pretty much just flopped from the very beginning. Enter the BlackBerry Storm. It seems like the in thing to do these days is ditch your Storm for an iPhone 3G. Not a bad move in our opinion and we welcome forum member whsingleton to the good side!

You heard that the App Store is approaching 1 billion app downloads right? Well you could win a $10,000 iTunes gift card and Dizzy wants to know, what would you do with a $10,000 iTunes gift card?!

Our last thread for today comes to us from Ivoryplum. Ivoryplum wants to know what is the average sync time with iTunes? I honestly can’t complain with my syncing. How about you?

So there you have it folks, some really good threads for all of you to check out. Just remember to register first!

See you on the forums!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

From the Forums: Camera Flash? EDGE Only iPhone?, BlackBerry Storm, iTunes Gift Card, and Sync Time?

Last week AT&T created quite a ruckus for altering their ToS, but after the backlash they ultimately decided against it. Well, we may be looking at round 2 here.

This time a tipster has told TiPb that iPhone 3G owners in the Atlanta and Austin markets who are not currently provisioned with an iPhone 3G data plan will receive an SMS message advising them that an iPhone 3G rate plan will be added to their line of service. These customers will begin receiving SMS messages today and the plans will be provisioned on the evenings of April 8th and 9th. It appears that AT&T just tapped these two cities as a trial run, the rest of the country should start getting similar alerts on April 21st.

So what does all of this mean? There are a few possibilities, depending on your mobile situation:

• If you are using an iPhone 3G and you snuck in one of AT&T’s MediaNET data plans for $15 you will be forced on the $30 iPhone 3G data plan.
• For those of you who share SIM cards between an iPhone and Blackberry while using a Blackberry data plan, well it may be a bit more troublesome. Since your BlackBerry requires a BlackBerry plan to work, you’ll need to make extra-double-sure you don’t get an alert and if you do, you will want to call up AT&T right away and explain that you’re a SIM-swapper and to leave your plan set to your BB plan — which will hopefully continue to work fine on an iPhone.
• Lastly, with a PDA Unlimited data plan, expect minimal damage.  It’s theoretically possible that MMS will not work since the iPhone currently does not support MMS, at least until AT&T flips the switch when iPhone OS 3.0 drops.  So check that.

The thing that really rubs TiPb the wrong way is that the BlackBerry, PDA, and iPhone data plans all are $30. Why not allow us to change our devices as we see fit and keep it simple by one data plan to rule them all.  BlackBerry users who try to switch their SIM to another device have long lived with the pain of not having a plan that easily works on non-BB phones.  For now, iPhone plans do work fine on other devices.

So to all of the SIM swappers out there or for those of you who flew under the radar, how are you feeling about this?  Isn’t part the point of having a GSM phone being able to swap the SIM with minimal hassle?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

AT&T Cracking Down – iPhone 3G Users Currently on Other Plans Be Warned

Mike and Dieter discussed this newfangled tech being offered up by AT&T (and others) called Femtocell during the last Phone different podcast, and our sibling site, WMExperts has posted up the quick and dirty:

AT&T is joining the femtocell bandwagon with their 3G MicroCell. While pricing and availability aren’t indicated on AT&T’s site, we do know that it will cover up to 5,000 square feet, allow up to four simultaneous, secure voice or data connections, and will require a broadband connection to operate. It is also only compatible with 3G phones.

Gizmodo has an update as well, but basically if you have poor to no 3G reception, you can stick this box on your home broadband network and it will route all your smartphone connectivity (including voice calls) through your cable or DSL. Cell to internet adapter, in other words. Negatives will likely include an additional — though hopefully small — upfront or monthly fee. Positives could be free nationwide calling while your phone is on the home femtocell network.

Anyone in a bad area think they’ll consider this? Would you rather pay $250 up front and no monthly charge like Verizon, or $100 up front and $5 a month like Sprint? Or is AT&T not scratching one more dime out of your already picked-clean pockets?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Lousy iPhone Reception? Want an AT&T Tower in Your House? Meet Femtocell!

During his Macworld Keynote (see our MASSIVE Live blog!), Phil Schiller today announced the death of the iPhone (and iPod Touch) WiFi Music Store — and the birth of the WiFi and 3G Music Store!

Yup, iPhone 3G users can now browser and directly download music over the data network for anywhere, anytime access to new music.

UPDATE: Daring Fireball says downloads work over 2G/EDGE as well!

It seems to already be working, and working in multiple countries (including Canada! Yay!)

Have you downloaded any music directly to your iPhone yet? How did it work for you?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Macworld: Direct Music Downloads for the iPhone via 3G (Updated: and EDGE!)

For the love of Steve Jobs, leave Britney ehh… I mean the iPhone alone!

Back at the end of July, Casey reported on white iPhones having issues with the plastic housing cracking in certain areas. As most of you are probably aware of, there have been a few lawsuits filed against Apple regarding the iPhone 3G.

This go around a New York man, Avi Koschitzki, filed a 23 page lawsuit stating the iPhone is not “twice as fast” as the original and exhibits cracks in the housing of the phone.

Koschitzki is among several customers who’ve noticed hairline cracks form in the iPhone 3G’s casing at or around the camera module, and adds that some customers have noticed similar cracks immediately upon opening their new iPhones’ boxes for the first time.

Upon opening their new boxes for the first time? Gee… don’t you think if you bought a new iPhone 3G and you opened up that box only to see some cracks in the housing that you would say hey, wait a minute! Common sense if you ask me.

There is a ongoing thread in our forums regarding cracks in the iPhone 3G casing. Sorry but I still think people need to take better care of their iPhones. And I’m sure for some people it is a legitimate issue, but more than likely, most of the cases are cracking from abuse.

[Via Appleinsider]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

New “Cracking” Lawsuit: Leave the iPhone Alone!